The giant whale appeared to be wailing. It sounded like it was calling someone’s name, but Xiang Nuan was unable to hear it anymore. His actions became slower and slower until sin covered his entire body. His last shred of consciousness was snuffed out like candle in the night. His lips moved slightly. Xiang Nuan appeared to say something, but no one could hear him clearly.
Everyone watched as the boy’s body gradually assimilated into the shell of the Past, becoming part of the world of the black fog. The last shred of consciousness was consumed by the black fog. The ghost fetus carried all his sin and dispersed into nothingness, leaving behind an island of humanity in the world of the black fog. The sin of this place was so heavy that even the ghost in the black fog did not dare come too close to this place, but the giant and beautiful whale guarded closely beside it. The black fog was corrupting her body, but she did not mind it at all. The giant body slowly swam around the small island, splashing away the black fog that dared to come close to the small island and blocked away the black rain that dropped from the sky.
Chen Ge stood at the rooftop of Jin Hwa Apartments Block A and looked at everything silently until the temperature around him suddenly dropped, and a faded scent of blood drifted into his nostril. Turning his head back, Chen Ge realized that Zhang Ya was standing beside him. She was looking at Xiang Nuan, who had turned into the island, and Wen Qing, who had morphed into the giant whale. The two stared at this scene for a long time until a pale hand poked out from underneath the Past’s blackened shell. The hand was covered in shredded human faces.
The faceless doctor struggled to crawl out from under the shell. His coat of blood had already disappeared, his body was covered in wounds, and the faces that were on the coat had now been transferred to his physical body. He was lucky to have survived this ordeal, but the faceless doctor was still not satisfied. He cursed the ghost fetus under his breath while his eyes kept following the giant whale above his head, unblinking.
“She has not been touched by the influence of sin at all, huh? Has the ghost fetus delivered everything that it has gathered for the past ten years to that woman‽”
The faceless doctor’s eyes were overflowing with greed, but before he could take any further action, an extremely scary presence materialized behind him. He whipped his body around, and the expressions of the broken faces on the faceless doctor’s body all changed. He saw Zhang Ya and Chen Ge were standing near him.
“I know you are targeting the ghost fetus as well. You won’t be able to consume all of the power he’s left behind by yourself, so why don’t we work together?” The faceless doctor was very apprehensive of Zhang Ya. He was seriously injured, and the fact that he was still alive was already in itself a miracle, so he had no energy left to fight Zhang Ya.
“There’s no problem with us working together, but before that, you have to answer a few of my questions honestly.” Chen Ge walked out from behind Zhang Ya. When he noticed that the faceless doctor was still alive, he had gotten Zhang Ya to follow him and take a look. The thing that the ghost fetus had given to Wen Qing, Chen Ge did not wish to take away from her, but he was not going to let this Demon God go so easily.
“What do you want to know?” This appeared to be the first time the faceless doctor had conversed with a normal human being. All the faces on his body focused their scary countenance on Chen Ge. The chilling and eerie feeling gripped at Chen Ge’s heart, but to the faceless doctor’s surprise, Chen Ge did not react in any way toward it.
“The first question, when did you guys start to target the ghost fetus?”
“When he escaped from Jiujiang,” the faceless doctor admitted easily. For someone like him, they would do anything for their lives. “We had close surveillance on him, so we knew basically everything that he was doing. As long as one’s been a patient of our hospital, they will have the hospital’s curse on them. Even if they manage to escape, in the future, one day, the hospital will appear before them again.”
“In other words, you’ve known for a while that the ghost fetus was hiding inside Xiang Nuan?”
“Of all the nine children selected by the ghost fetus, only Xiang Nuan did not have self-consciousness. He almost died during childbirth. The ghost fetus literally protected his life, but at the same time, he took over his life.” The faceless doctor made use of this time to recover. “We not only knew the ghost fetus was hiding inside Xiang Nuan—we also knew that he was destined to fail. No one can bridge the gap between life and death, so we have been waiting for this very last moment to come and recapture our patient.”
“Recapture your patient? Before becoming your patient, he was my shadow.” Chen Ge’s tone made it very difficult to read his thoughts.
“You wish to use that as leverage to claim a greater share? No problem, I only need thirty percent of the power left behind by the ghost fetus. the rest can be yours.” It was unclear whether the faceless doctor was trying to stall for time or really thought that way to try to be on Chen Ge’s good side. Either way, the man was not to be trusted.
“I can give you all the power of the ghost fetus, but I hope you can honestly answer the next few questions that I have.” Chen Ge slowly lowered his head so that no one would be able to see his current expression. “Why didn’t the people from your hospital dare appear that freely in Jiujiang? Is there some kind of secret hidden here?”
“What are you talking about? Aren’t I here now? I do not know how to answer this question of yours.”
“Patient 0004, the ghost fetus; Patient 0011, the doctor; and many more patients have hidden in Jiujiang, but over the past ten years, the hospital did not send anyone to come to Jiujiang to recapture them. It was not until recently that you people dared come into the territory of Jiujiang. I suspect that it is because the thing that you guys were afraid of has disappeared, so there was nothing to hold you guys back.”
Chen Ge used Yin Yang Vision to the extreme. His head tilted up slowly and captured all the expressions of the faces on the doctor.
The faceless doctor did not speak. All the faces on his body were all looking back at Chen Ge. After a few minutes, the faceless doctor finally admitted, “Yes, you’re right. Before this, we were not allowed to enter Jiujiang freely because of a curse, or rather, it was more of a deal. But now that curse has been abolished.”
“It has been abolished?”
“Yes, because the party that created the curse is now dead.” The faceless doctor was also closely following the change in Chen Ge’s expression.
“Do you know the name of the party who created the curse?”
“It was a husband and wife, but as for their names and appearance, these details are only known to the hospital director.” This was not the first time that the faceless doctor had mentioned the hospital director. It appeared like he had great respect and admiration for the director from the bottom of his heart.
“How does one get to meet the hospital director?” Chen Ge asked expressionlessly. No one was able to tell what he was thinking.
“The only known method for now is to become one of the patients, and you will have to be one of the patients ranked in the top ten.” The faceless doctor did not appear like he was lying. He gave it some serious thought before he provided Chen Ge with the method that was most easily achieved.
“One last question, as a Demon God, the ghost fetus was only ranked number four at your hospital. How scary are the first three patients? Tell me everything that you know about them.”
“I am sorry, but the details of the three patients are themselves part of the curse. Once you mention them, bad things will happen.”
“Sounds like you are not prepared to answer my questions anymore…”
“Actually I have already told you many things, but you have to understand that the more you know, the more dangerous your situation will be.” The faceless doctor had slowly recovered. Even the shredded faces on his body were slowly coming back together.
Chen Ge had chatted with the faceless doctor for a long time, and the latter had merely been brushing off the former. Even though the faceless doctor had technically answered all of Chen Ge’s questions, none of the answers that he gave were clear and traceable. But even so, Chen Ge managed to derive the information that he wanted from their conversation.
My parents have formed some kind of deal with the cursed hospital, their disappearance therefore has to be related to this hospital!
With that point confirmed, the rest did not matter that much to Chen Ge. Now, he only wanted to do one thing, and that was to kill the faceless doctor as soon as possible, to tear open his soul and deprive him of the chance to survive. This way, the cursed hospital would lose the power of one Demon God!
“I have answered all your questions. We have just experienced a bloody war; now is the time to enjoy the spoil of war.” The faceless doctor’s greedy gaze moved to fall on the giant whale. He desperately needed the power left behind by the ghost fetus to help with his own convalescence.
“I can give you all the energy that is left behind by the ghost fetus, but…” Chen Ge flipped open the comic as he took a step back. “You will have to be alive to enjoy it!”
Both Xiao Bu and the red high heels appeared at the same time. They guarded beside Chen Ge while Zhang Ya made her move toward the faceless doctor as if on cue. The faceless doctor had done a lot of preparation to deal with the ghost fetus, but that preparation was never meant for Zhang Ya, and he had suffered heavy wounds from his battle with the rag doll and then the Past.
The battle between the two pushed away the black fog. This was for the first time Chen Ge had seen the power of a Demon God up close, and it was on a completely different level from a Red Specter. The battle took much longer than Chen Ge anticipated. The faceless doctor was scarily resilient. His body was broken again and again, but he always found a way to recover himself. During the battle, he even tried to come after Chen Ge several times, to attempt to use Chen Ge as leverage to threaten Zhang Ya, like how he used Wen Qing to limit the ghost fetus, but he was stopped every time by the red high heels and Xiao Bu.
Chen Ge was not Wen Qing. With strong mental acuity and the protection of several Red Specters, he even dared to use his employees’ special powers to help intervene between the fight of the two Demon Gods. The faceless doctor fought with everything he had, and that exposed some of Zhang Ya’s problems. She could not use other people’s powers for too long because it would cause serious damage to her own body.
The two fought until the very end. Bloody rain rained down on the residential area. The faceless doctor was ultimately trapped inside the projection of the red city by Zhang Ya. The congealed resentment burst through the black fog. The Specters did not dare move close to this place. They did not dare step onto the island. When the bloody rain stopped, the faceless doctor had disappeared without a trace, and only Zhang Ya stood alone amid the sea of red.
“The ghost fetus had already heavily injured the faceless doctor, but even so, Zhang Ya had to sacrifice a lot before she managed to trap and kill the faceless doctor. Looks like it is not that simple to kill a Demon God.” The sea of red slowly ebbed. The red city also disappeared along with it. The faceless doctor’s body reappeared on the ground like a beached carcass. Black curses still travelled on his body. The man’s soul had been broken and shattered, but his body appeared to still be alive in some weird way.
“Even though the faceless doctor, Zhang Ya, and the ghost fetus are all Demon Gods, the faceless doctor gives off a different feeling from the other Demon Gods. He appears to be slightly weaker than Zhang Ya and the ghost fetus. His presence is not that stable.”
The faceless doctor must have other secrets hidden on him, but Chen Ge did not plan to ask for more details. He planned to hand the faceless doctor over to Zhang Ya, and he hoped that through that, Zhang Ya would have a new breakthrough in her power.
“As the scariest presence at the haunted house, Zhang Ya getting stronger will only benefit everyone. Furthermore, she killed the faceless doctor. It’s only fair that she should get the freedom to deal with the doctor.”
Chen Ge was the kind of person who would focus on a single path to the end. Along his journey, he had practically poured all the resources that he had obtained into Zhang Ya. That was why Zhang Ya had been able to morph from a normal Red Specter to a Top Red Specter and then breakthrough to become a Demon God in such a short period of time. Walking out from the sea of blood, Zhang Ya stopped beside Chen Ge. She glanced at the ghost fetus, who had turned into an island, and then moved her eyes to follow Wen Qing, who had been transformed into a giant whale, before her eyes finally fell on Chen Ge.
The resentment and despair that were palpable in her eyes slowly faded away. This time, Zhang Ya did not return directly into Chen Ge’s shadow. She seemed to be touched by the scene before them and stood silently beside Chen Ge to observe it. Both Zhang Ya and the ghost fetus were Demon Gods, but their experiences and lives were completely different.
The ghost fetus had spent his whole life struggling. Everyone feared him as a Demon God until he met Wen Qing, but by then, he had made too many mistakes. His love was like an abyss. Even he did not dare let Wen Qing get too close to him. In comparison, Zhang Ya was much luckier. At the very early part of her ‘life’, she was given the chance to meet Chen Ge. No matter how other people viewed her, in Chen Ge’s eyes, Zhang Ya was always Zhang Ya.
“It’s finally over.” Chen Ge turned to look at Zhang Ya beside him. The female teacher who held out the umbrella for him in the rain from his memory overlapped with the person before him. He raised his hand subconsciously to reach out to touch Zhang Ya’s cold fingers. Zhang Ya did not shy away. She pulled back all her presence. At that moment, she was like a normal person. Chen Ge nudged closer to Zhang Ya. Just as he was about to hold her hand, a man’s excited scream came from behind him.
“Brother! You are still alive! I’ve found your cat! Can you believe it‽” Xiao Sun carried the white cat as he raced out of Jin Hwa Apartments Block A. His face was plain with excitement to have been able to survive until now!
He practically flew toward Chen Ge. He did not notice that the Red Specters present had all stayed away from Chen Ge. Even the white cat that was trapped in his embrace was struggling as best he could as Xiao Sun moved toward Chen Ge.
“Do you know how afraid I was earlier? I think I heard the sound of your big sister. I was really worried about you guys…” Xiao Sun held onto the white cat and refused to let go. It was not until he got close to Chen Ge that he realized the woman in the red dress next to Chen Ge was not Wen Qing. “Brother? Where is your sister? The one who has been following you earlier was not her?”
Xiao Sun—who had moved into a demon’s apartment alone, who had voiced his analysis out loud in a crowd of murderers, who had treaded the territory of murderers and madmen in one night—had unlocked a new level of fearlessness.
At that moment, Chen Ge really did not know how to answer. The white cat in Xiao Sun’s embrace had already given up its struggle. The expression on its face seemed to say, Just let me die.
“Well, it’s a long story…” Before Chen Ge could say anything, the presence that Zhang Ya pulled back earlier exploded. The black fog around them was blasted back, and the ground beneath them cracked. But actually, all Zhang Ya did was pull her hair back behind her ears.
Xiao Sun sat down to the ground. It appeared like his soul had left his body. The white cat was convulsing in his arms. Its eyes appeared to be watering.
The Red Specters who had dispersed several hundred meters away were all busy with their own things. Some of them were studying the monsters in the black fog, some were trying to poke through the ghost fetus’ shell, and some were just looking up at the sky.
The water ghost, who was the haunted house’s latest ‘involuntary’ worker, only took a glance this way before he was pulled away by Men Nan. “Well, just pay attention to someone like Xiao Sun, remember to stay away from him. Otherwise, one day, when he’s struck by lightning, even if you’re not caught in the blast, you’ll be covered in his blood.”
